[CQ-Contest] Zero Beat ? Not everybody does !

[K9MA]

I noticed the same thing a few times. Unless one changes frequency while 
running, the spots shouldn't be all that far off. I notice that 
sometimes they are when I click on them, but that may be because of a 
QSY. That's pretty common when running, when an adjacent station moves 
in.  I suspect some callers are using wider bandwidths, but don't have a 
sense of matching the beat notes. Musicians call that "tone deafness", 
and some operators no doubt have it.

A more frequent problem is when everyone is exactly zero beat with each 
other. Sometimes the spots are TOO accurate!

BTW, Bob's experience illustrates the dramatic difference in skirt 
selectivity between the IC-7610 and the K4. The K4 has such poor skirts 
that you can hear stations several hundred Hz from the center, even with 
a 300-400 Hz bandwidth. At 400 Hz BW, the IC-7610 is 60 dB down 270 Hz 
from the center, while the K4 is only 18 dB down. I know, some prefer 
the softer skirts, but I don't. Anyway, the IC-7610 has a softer option. 
Alas, for other reasons I prefer the K4, but I sure wish it had 
filtering like the IC-7610.

73,
Scott K9MA


On 12/9/2025 12:25 PM, w2xl at twc.com wrote:
>
> 	I participated in the ARRL 160 this past weekend. Conditions were
> pretty bad and I didn't hit it real hard, mostly I ran. 25% or more of
> my contacts were far (really far!) from zero beat. This seems to be
> getting worse and some of the offenders are well known calls. Many
> times the calls were far off my Freq. , some more than 500 - 1000 Hz.
> and out of my passband. Some of these callers were strong enuf that I
> would have got them on the first call if they were a little closer
> close to zero beat. The only way I found some of them was I noticed
> pips on my IC-7610 band scope that were out of my passband, but in
> sync with my calling CQ or QRZ and I used the RIT to tune way off
> Freq. to pull them in. I normally run 200 - 300 Hz bandwidth but I had
> to open it to 450 Hz to hear a lot of these calls.
>   I think there are several reasons for this: 1. Stations click on
> packet spots that are not exactly the frequency that I am on , they
> hear me OK but don't bother to tune me in better. 2. Listening to a
> beat note that is not what their RX is set for. (which sets the exact
> TX freq.) 3. Wide CW Filter or CW filter setting (which can cause 1 &
> 2) 4. Using the logging software to set a TX offset to break pile ups
> that is too far from normal for S & P use. (I think 100 - 200Hz should
> be more that enuf for S & P)
>   So I would ask that everyone check out the factors I have mentioned
> and try to get close to zero beat when doing S & P  73 MX & HNY Bob
> W2XL
>   PS: This is my first post to CQ Contest after abt 57 years of
> Contesting ! MX & HNY !
>
>
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-- 
Scott  K9MA

k9ma at sdellington.us